


With Your Head In My Hands

by KelpietheThundergod



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Episode: s10e09 The Things We Left Behind, Gen, Graphic Violence, Hallucinations, M/M, Mark of Cain, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 10, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:55:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4757282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpietheThundergod/pseuds/KelpietheThundergod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time it happens, there is only his room, and then there is that crack in the wall, like a line of flickering shadow, an open wound with jagged teeth. He goes over to touch it, heart pounding in terror, and instead of his fingers connecting with the wall, he slices them open on a blade.</p><p>There shouldn't be any knives at that spot on the wall.</p><p>He's been avoiding touching things since.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Your Head In My Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Memberoftheangelgarrison](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Memberoftheangelgarrison).



> For my dear friend Nina :)

 

 

_i am_

_the ghosts_

_of empty oceans_

 

_it's a bitter taste_

 

_you say_

_it's just the iron in your blood_

_oh, but i will twist your words around!_

 

_a white glow, golden haze_

_stretch, reach out_

_and you'll be down, gone_

_deep_

_up and away_

 

_here on your knees_

_with your head in my hands_

_what is mine – yours_

_and_

_you._

 

 

 

 

It's the sounds of breaking glass, of fists and feet hitting flesh, that make Sam rush back inside, weapon drawn. What he sees makes him stop short in the doorway though, shocked – he expected the fight, the danger, but underneath it runs the fear of his brother losing control again.

Instead, he sees Dean, but Dean on the ground, curled into a ball, trying to protect his head with his arms. He's lying in the glass and broken wood of what once might have been a coffee table, and one of the men is beating him with what looks like the leg of a stool.

Sam is frozen for a whole of three seconds, then he yells Cas' name, the angel having stayed behind to comfort the distraught Claire.

He rushes in then, shoots a warning shot at the ground, “Stop! Hands in the air, hands in the air _now_!”

Cas appears at his side just as the bastards step away from Dean, and the angel stops short at the sight just as Sam did, his alert expression instantly changing to a stony anger. And Sam can relate; he wants these men to pay for what they tried to do to Claire, for what they've just done to Dean, but something is wrong, something is so very wrong here, and he just wants all of them as far away from here as fast as possible.

“Cas, get Dean out of here. Then get some handcuffs from the trunk.”

The angel moves forward before he's even finished speaking, dividing his attention between Dean and the men who are backing away from him reluctantly at Sam's command, clearly struggling to reign in his anger. Sam is trying to keep all the men in his eyesight, but from the corner of his vision he can see Cas gently trying to pry away Dean's arms from his head to lift him off the ground. Something he sees must surprise him, he freezes for a second before uttering a “He's unconscious, I think,” in Sam's direction, his voice flat.

The man next to them snorts at the angel's words in disgust. Cas' shoulders tense further for a second, but he concentrates on Dean, hauls Sam's brother to his feet, and Dean sags against him, dead weight.

When Cas passes Sam on the way to the door, Sam spares a short glance away from the men. The skin around one of Dean's eyes is a blackish blue, his lip bitten and blood dripping from his chin down on his ruined shirt, leaving drops and traces on the floor.

>

Dean is still unresponsive when Castiel deposits him in the shotgun seat as gently as possible. When he carried him, he could feel how Dean's heart is beating too fast, hear his erratic and raspy breathing. Dean's eyes are moving under their lids in a manner far more similar to a nightmare than being out cold.

Dean's hands are fists, his arms are trembling minutely. Castiel can feel the Mark of Cain beat like a second heart under Dean's skin.

From the backseat, Claire is asking, “What happened?”

Her voice is still shaky, but her eyes are already clearer, more focused when they look at Castiel.

He dislikes having to leave her alone again, just as much as he dislikes drawing away from Dean and leaving him out of his sight, but Sam needs his help.

“I don't know. Maybe they attacked him from behind. I'm going to be right back.”

When he handcuffs the men while Sam keeps his gun trained on them – they're saying things, vile things Castiel chooses not to listen to – he can tell Sam is itching to punish them just as much at he is, but that Sam also has decided there are things more important now.

Castiel is going to heal Dean and then they are going to take Claire far, far away from here.

>

The first thing cutting through the haze of pain is the feel of familiar leather under him, and the sound of sniffled crying from behind. Dean groans, his vision blurry when he tries to open his aching eyes. When he attempts to lift a hand to his pounding head, it shakes so badly he has to let it fall down again.

From the fire in his chest and the constricted feeling around his lungs, he guesses a few of his ribs are cracked. The disorientation might be a concussion, and he seriously doubts he could walk straight, much less fight.

 _Good_.

He feels the panic rising again, feels tears burn and threaten to spill. His right arm is pulsing with pain like someone ran a metal wire through it. Or cut it open with a splintered bone.

“You still alive?” A voice asks from the backseat.

Dean opens his mouth but finds he cannot answer.

>

When Castiel comes back, he finds that Dean is conscious, if barely. But when he lays his hand on Dean's head to heal him, Dean flinches away, begins to shake his head but stops short when the motion seems to make him dizzy. “No,” he says, his voice rough around a clicking sound in his throat, “no, no, no.”

“Dean – ” But Dean actively pushes him away then, even though the exertion leaves him out of breath and shaking, hugging an arm around his midsection protectively.

Even Sam sitting down in the driver's seat and starting the car, arguing that at least they should get Dean to a hospital the next town over, is answered by a single rough “No” from Dean, who then seems to tune all of them out completely. Curling around himself and leaning against the car window, his breathing flat and painful sounding.

It's the only sound for the next few miles, a tense silence settling over all of them. Claire soon falls asleep with her head on Castiel's shoulder, and Castiel draws the blanket Sam had given him from the trunk tighter around her. The frustration and worry Sam must feel towards his brother is radiating off him, visible in the tense line of his shoulders, the glances he occasionally directs at Dean's silent and unmoving form.

Castiel is reminded of the night in the crypt, when Dean was backing away from him, fear in his eyes, that same litany of “No, no” echoing in the space between them. His stomach turns at the memory. He feels cold all over despite himself.

 _I can't be that thing again_.

When they're just about an hour from the bunker, Dean suddenly draws in a sharp breath, and Sam turns to his brother, says “Dean, look –” Dean shakes his head, gestures at Sam and urges, “Stop the car, stop the car.”

The Impala has barely slowed down and come to a stop at the side of the road when Dean basically falls out the door, seemingly unable to stand. The sound of retching is heard shortly after.

Castiel carefully moves Claire so that she's resting against the backseat, the girl mumbling in her sleep but not waking up. Then he's outside and holding Dean up with a hand on his shoulder, Sam coming around from the other side.

Dean is dry heaving by then, his eyes screwed tightly shut. He knees are digging into the roadside gravel, and he's holding himself up with one arm, the other curled around his chest, his hand fisted into the fabric of his jacket, white-knuckled and bloody.

Sam crouches down beside them, but when he reaches out to help Dean up, Dean bats his hands away, shrugs Cas' hand off his shoulder, and crawls back into the passenger seat, panting and ghastly pale.

Castiel looks to Sam, but only sees his own helplessness reflected back at him.

>

Dean makes it into the bunker on his own feet, but once inside he walks straight past Sam and Cas, doesn't listen, doesn't look, just limps to his room and closes the door behind himself.

He sits down on the bed and stares at his hands, his arms, riddled in cuts from the glass he fell onto.

The mark is aching and burning on his arm, as if freshly seared into his flesh.

_The table in pieces on the floor, glass breaking under his hands, dark pools of blood, the rush when he'd kill every single one of the men with his knife, slice their throats, cast them aside, and the next and the next –_

It was all there, in that split second where he'd been hit and had dropped to the floor, vulnerable and surrounded, and then one guy'd kicked him against the side of his head.

So he'd used the pain, to wash away that absence of feeling, to ground himself in the present.

Now, he's not sure where up and down is anymore.

Dean lies down on his side on the bed, not even bothering to take off his shoes. His heart rate doesn't seem to be able to get down though. And what if _it_ wakes up, in the night? And he doesn't, and it walks his body through the door, out into the hallways, and –

He gets up again even though it makes his head spin, finds a pair of handcuffs in one of his duffels, chains his right arm to the bedpost with it. It wouldn't stop – he'd be able to rip it apart, but the noise might alarm someone, he might be able to wake himself up with it.

It feels better, safer. Not enough so that he can close his eyes, but enough to make his heart beat somewhat slower.

There is banging on his door some time later, voices, but he doesn't listen to them, can't.

Instead, he stares at the interior of his room. The picture of his mother, the LPs, the weapons on the wall, the soft light of the bedside lamp.

He should feel. Something. This, all of it, any of it, should tell him who he is, who he should be.

What he should do.

Instead, he feels his insides twist around in pain, like ghost hands stabbing through his flesh. Maybe he just doesn't belong here anymore.

>

He wakes.

He wakes, and it's not the too fast startle out of nightmares.

Not the rush of down in the pit and alive and hurting in the next moment. Waking is a struggle, he has to fight for it. A feeling like the more aware he becomes, the more he's going under. A stone falling out of the ocean and getting hurled into a starless space.

A bare white ceiling is the first thing he sees. Blank, empty. It makes him shiver, his stomach rolling with nausea. Like this nothingness has eyes, somehow, eyes that don't close, never close, but stare and stare at him, and follow, never let him go. He sits up, dizzy and disoriented – he's on a bed, in a room. It's –

It's _his_ room. Dean is – he is _home_.

The weapons on his wall are shadows, the door is closed, and it is utterly silent.

He has to _get_ _the fuck out_ – he shoves up, and then it happens, like a movie on fast-forward, only it's backwards, sluggish, the colors gone but for the _red_.

The back of his head is hurting, it was the blow that took him down. Then, the attack, and he had tried to not fight back, to _not_ – and he hadn't, but even now he feels it. How it's going to take him over. Use and twist his body like it is its own, like Dean isn't. Isn't even here anymore.

Dean sits, shaking, the bile rising in his throat. It's too late. It's too fucking late, already. It's washing him away.

He shouldn't have stayed here. He shouldn't have hoped. He's a walking wall of fire, he's gonna burn it all down if he doesn't. If he.

Dean's still alive, so that means that Cas didn't. He didn't. He won't, probably, and Dean is not gonna risk innocent lives, is not gonna risk Sam or Cas' life.

That only leaves –

But he has to say goodbye, somehow, has to apologize.

He's chained to the bed, his memories of clicking the metal shut over his own wrist hazy. It takes him a moment to remember the keys are hidden in the drawer of the nightstand. He gets up then, heads for his desk, and the room sways around him like a ship lost at sea. Dean grits his teeth against the spread of nausea, shuffles through the notes, the books. An empty page, he has to find an _empty_ page – papers are littering the floor by the time he finds one. For a second, fear rips through him, the pages, when they fell, did they make a sound?

But then he finds an empty one, crumbled around the corners but blank.

He smoothes over it, grabs a ballpoint pen.

He writes,

_Sam – I know you've tried, but it's my fault it didn't work. I took this on, I fucked it up. But you managed to get outta this cycle before, you can do it again. Thank you, and I'm sorry. I'm just so fucking sorry._

_Cas – listen, I know what I asked of you, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Doesn't matter, I've found another solution. Just, stay alive, and try and be happy and stay out of crap for once, can you do that for me? And thank you, for everything._

                    * _Dean_




 

He puts the note in the middle of his desk, easy to see.

He wrenches the door open and is gone, gone, gone.

>

On his way to the exit, he runs into Sam.

It was probably inevitable. He schools his expression into something like calm, tired. Non-threatening. It's not that hard, with the numbness he feels everywhere, but the knowledge of the note in his room burns in him like someone forced liquid iron down his throat.

“Dean.”

His brother looks up from where he'd been hunched over a couple of files in the library, his face a mixture of surprise and wariness. Worry, maybe. Maybe fear.

Sam gets up, hurriedly, takes a step towards Dean, stops again. He looks him up and down, “How are you, uh. How are you feeling?”

Dean shrugs. Dammit, he's a coward. He can barely look at Sam.

“Better. I guess. You know what, we should uh. Talk, I guess,” he says, awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck in what hopefully looks like embarrassment but is more closer to shame. His bruised ribs twinge painfully. He hates, hates, hates himself.

Sam sets on to say something, but Dean interrupts him, stumbles over his words, “Just. I need to clear my head first. I'm just gonna,” he makes a helpless gesture, as if he doesn't know what he's gonna do, except he does. He does know. “I'm just gonna go for a drive first. It's late anyway, we can talk tomorrow.”

It must be a testament to how much he's fucked up since, like, forever, that Sam doesn't argue with him, just looks at him kind of pitying.

Dean almost – he almost tells him he's sorry, wants so desperately to actually say it out loud. But he can't, can't risk Sam's suspicion.

So he just kind of waves, awkwardly, and then heads for the garage.

His shoulders ache, and he rubs at them, but it doesn't help.

>

He leaves the Impala, and it's harder than it should be. It's just, he can't stand the thought of Sam having to retrieve her.

It's raining when he heads out with one of their backup cars, because of course it is.

He plugs Led Zep's Houses of the Holy in, but either the CD or the player are busted, because whatever he does, it only plays No Quarter, in an endless loop. He finally just turns the volume down, because the silence is even worse.

At least it takes Benny barely more than five rings to pick up the phone.

“ _Hey brother,”_ and for some reason he sounds as relieved as Dean feels upon hearing his voice.

“ _What's wrong?”_

Dean makes a face. Of course Benny would know something was up from the get go. It's not like Dean calls that much with any other reason, and damn it's too late now, but why did he have to be such a shitty friend.

“Listen, uh. Where are you right now?”

“ _Atlantic, Iowa.”_

Dean exhales a relieved breath.

“Good, perfect. I'm only four hours away.”

There's a beat of silence. _“You in a hurry, brother?”_

“Kind of. Sorry, I'll uh. I'll explain.” He adjusts his hands on the steering wheel, tries to only focus on the road, the next turn, and the next turn.

“So, uh. Where are you staying?”

>

The cabin Benny's lodging in looks eerily like an abandoned hunter's one. Kind of like Rufus' cabin in Whitefish, actually.

The electricity is apparently busted though, for Benny's hulking shape is barely visible in the dark and faintly bluish gloom inside.

“What's with the Zero Dark Thirty in here?” Dean asks, trying for lighthearted but probably only coming off as exhausted. It was only a drive of 247 miles, and yet he feels weighted down like an entire day has come and gone.

Benny snorts. Dean waits for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light. It looks like Benny's sitting at a table at the end of the room.

“You know I don't need it.”

Dean carefully makes his way across the room – the cabin is not exactly in good shape. The wooden floor is splintered in places, the roof has holes, what little he can see of the furniture looks used up and broken. And he's dizzy still, weak, like coming down with a fever.

He drags one of the chairs up to him with shaking hands, sits down across from Benny. “Charming place.”

Benny chuckles quietly to himself. “Beggars can't be choosers. And I don't exactly need roads, where I'm going.”

Dean frowns at the puzzling statement, something like a _déjà vu_ ringing a bell in his head. But then Benny shifts in his chair, like he's looking Dean up and down.

“Hope you don't mind me saying, but you ain't looking so good.”

Dean chuckles without humor, breathlessly. He feels shaky all over, self-conscious under Benny's sharp gaze, but this is it, he's gonna have to lay it all down, and then. And then.

He shifts in the chair, then lays his right arm out on the table. It's cold in here, kind of colder than it should be this time of the year, even at night. But maybe it's just nerves. His sleeve is rolled up. He shivers.

Dean can barely see the mark in this gloom, but Benny can. And yet, his friend only freezes for a second, then sighs, leans back in his chair.

“In what kind of mess did you get yourself this time, brother.”

Dean tries to smile, or he thinks he does. His face hurts.

“The bloody kind. Not your kind of bloody, it's. It's worse. And I'm not gonna get back from it, not this time. Sam tried, Cas tried. It's. I can't keep doing that to them, man.”

He realizes he's been rubbing his right arm against the cold, just under the mark, almost scratching at the skin, and makes himself stop.

His heart is going a mile a minute, off-beat and desperate, like it knows what's in store for him any second now.

Benny is silent for a long moment, doesn't move. Dean can feel his stare though, fight or flight instinct prickling at his neck.

“... Dean, why are you here.”

“Benny –”

“I can't help you.”

“Listen –”

“No, you listen –” Benny leans forward abruptly, the chair making a hideous screeching noise across the broken floor, like a rusty door. Dean jumps back but holds his ground, grits his teeth.

“You're on the run right now, have you even realized that? It's too late for me, and if you don't pull your head outta your ass, it's gonna be too late for you too.”

Dean opens his mouth to argue but stops. His head is swimming, the dull headache behind his eyes pounding away in his skull. Of course his body chose this time to fall apart on him. Not that it matters.

He rubs a hand over his eyes. Benny's words make no sense, is he even listening?

Dean starts to say something else, but Benny overrides him, and his next words stun Dean into shocked silence.

“Why are you here, Dean? Why haven't you done it already yourself?”

It's worse, because Benny doesn't even sound angry. Not sad, either. His voice is soft, disappointed, defeated.

“Why are you here, Dean?”

There's a long, stretched out moment in which Dean can only sit there, frozen, trying to force breath into his aching lungs. Absently, he notices he's trembling. God, it's so motherfucking cold in here.

“I can't.” And he has to clear his throat, now his voice is giving up on him, too. “I can't, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't even work. Or what would. Happen, if I tried.”

Benny sighs again, like Dean is fucking blind, like he can't see what's right in front of him.

“I'm sorry okay, I don't wanna lay this burden on you, but it's out of control, _I'm_ out of control and – ”

“Dean, why are you here?”

Dean slams his fist on the table, furious, “Would you stop asking that! You know why.”

There's a motion in the gloom, like Benny shaking his head. His eyes glint in the dark for a second and are then gone again.

“I know. But you don't.”

Dean stills, an icy shiver running down his back.

“You remember when we cleared out my old nest together,” Benny continues, not giving Dean a chance to speak. He's talking quietly, slowly, like he's trying to force Dean to remember. “And you were telling me that we we were _here_ , that this was real. How dangerous those thoughts were.” He stops.

“You're in danger, Dean. Don't ya feel it?”

Dean stares at him. “That's –”

Only, he looks up then, through the black holes in the ceiling. The night, when he came here, was clear. But now, the stars are gone.

What little he can make out of the room now seems to be in even worse state than before, bits and broken pieces sticking out of the shadows. They've shifted closer, too. Closing in.

His heart is racing, his breaths coming short and erratic. Dean looks back at Benny.

Benny, who is still just sitting there, observing him. Who didn't stand up once, not even to greet him.

Benny, his friend, who is –

“No. No, that can't be right. You gotta help me, you gotta _make it stop_ – ”

Benny, or the thing that sounds like Benny, is silent.

Fear turns Dean's guts to acid, he's running out of time, and it doesn't matter that this isn't his friend.

“ _Make it_ stop _! You have to_ –”

The ground is shaking. He blinks, shocked, confused, and then light streams in, blinding.

>

Someone is shaking him. Dean is trying to twist away, shake the hands off that grab at him, but he's disoriented, weak, his heart beating so fast he can barely breathe.

“ _No_ –”

“Dean, it's me, it's Sam!”

Dean stills.

Sam – how did Sam find him? He threw his phone away after calling Benny.

Sam is saying something to him, but Dean can't hear him. There's a ringing in his ears; Sam is shaking him, but all Dean feels is the drum of his heart. It's drowning out everything else.

>

“ _... but he_ did _know he wrote the note?”_

“Cas, I don't know. All I know is there was a call to Benny's old number on his phone.”

“ _He thought Benny was alive?”_

“I don't know, he wouldn't talk to me. I'm not even sure if. If he could hear me.”

>

It's hard to stay in one place for long.

Most of the time, Dean is sure he is, somehow, back at the bunker. But then – he gets up, splashes cold water in his face, and when he lifts his head again, he's back in that washroom in Ogden where they'd trapped Gadreel. Only, he's in his room, maybe, and at the same time he's there.

It's disorienting. Like the two places overlap each other, and he is never sure what he's really touching, what he's really looking at.

The first time it happens, there is only his room, and then there is that crack in the wall, like a line of flickering shadow, an open wound with jagged teeth. He goes over to touch it, heart pounding in terror, and instead of his fingers connecting with the wall, he slices them open on a blade.

There shouldn't be any knives at that spot on the wall.

He's been avoiding touching things since.

The door is closed, he hasn't tried it yet. There are no sounds from outside, or maybe the walls are just too thick. That can't be it though, there should at least be footsteps in the hallway, other doors opening and closing. At least, if no one is here, he can not hurt anyone. He hopes this will be true, if nothing else here is.

Dean sits on the bed, and his hands are itching for the notepad with the pictures inside, but he curls them tight on his knees instead. He doesn't know if it's resolve or fear what holds him back.

He concentrates on an empty patch on the wall. It helps keeping the soft surface of the sheets under him from turning into the blood-spattered cold steel he's spent thirty years being strapped to.

The air in front of him shimmers with heat, he shivers with cold. There is silence, pressing around him like a wall of breath. And then it ends, and there is a whisper in the air, a scratching in the walls. He stares at them, and they stare back.

“They're going to find you if you stay still.”

He looks up at Tessa, standing in front of him and staring down. Her eyes are pools, not softened with sympathy but not angry either. A shadow of the calm she once promised washes over Dean, but it's like a thin film of mist. She has nothing to give him. The stab wound through her middle doesn't ooze blood, but it's like a black edge, like a hole in the sky. Dean swallows, concentrates on her eyes. Her staring eyes that look right through him.

“Who?”

Tessa doesn't breathe. Her face doesn't move. “Everyone,” she says. “Everyone, Dean.” He wants to ask her what she means, but the words are stuck in his throat. He knows.

The scratches in the walls get louder. He shudders with them, it feels like their scratching at his skin instead of stone.

His hands are so cold. Tessa is gone when he looks up again. He can't remember if her voice was in his room or in his head.

Dean stands. His legs feel weak and heavy, like something's pulling at him, pulling him further back into the room. He lays a hand on the door handle. It feels hot, but maybe his hand is just that cold. He pushes it down.

The hallways are brightly lit but empty. Every single one. The doors are all closed, he doesn't try them.

The scratching in the walls is left behind, but he doesn't turn around to check. The walk to the kitchen takes longer than it should, and when he reaches it, a feeling of relief makes his shoulders lose some of the tension. This was the only place he could think of that'd feel safe. He enters, and there's sunlight streaming in through the windows. He thinks, this is strange, but he isn't sure why.

Prodding at the feeling makes the fear rise up again like icy water, so he decides not to think about it.

Dean walks up to the stove, revels in the warmth of the light falling in from the window in front of him and the one to his right. He can't see outside, but that's okay. If he closes his eyes, he can even feel the gentle breeze that's ruffling the curtains, hear his mother's laughter in the air.

He sets a pot with water on the stove to boil. Watches how, slowly, steam rises from the water's surface. Not much longer now. The breeze has stopped and the air is still again.

Something tugs at his right sleeve. He looks down, expecting Sammy to look up at him, pouting, asking when lunch will be ready. Instead, there's Timmy's big eyes and pale face. “Dean,” he says, tugging at his sleeve again. Dean reduces the heat and crouches down, worried, “Hey, Timmy, what are you doing here?”

Timmy's fingers are curled tight into the fabric of his flannel, “Dean, I'm scared.”

Dean looks around them. There's nothing there. Nothing moves. Dust dances in the slashes of sunlight, slowly, undisturbed and endless.

He turns back to the kid, rubs a hand over Timmy's back. “Kitchen is the safest place, buddy. Better than my room, trust me.”

Timmy looks up at him, confusion mixing with the fear. “Every room is your room, Dean. Didn't you know?”

Dean's breath catches, his hand freezes against Timmy's back. The kid feels just as cold as him, even through the layers of fabric. He looks around the kitchen again. Nothing has changed, but everything has. He becomes aware how the edges of the things surrounding them are just that bit too sharp. How the sunlight that felt so gentle just a moment ago cuts through the scene like a knife.

Despite the turned down heat, the water is boiling on the stove, splashing over the rim of the pot with hissing sounds. Dean straightens, turns the heat off. The water continues to boil, air bubbles racing from the bottom to erupt in burning hot steam when they reach the surface. He backs away, heart hammering with a sudden burst of fear.

Timmy tugs at his sleeve again, and he takes the kid's hand in his, turns away and starts walking. Slowly, so Timmy can keep up.

Dean looks down at him, “Do you know where to go?”

Timmy is looking ahead. He's still pale and looks wary, but at least his hand in Dean's is getting warmer. Or maybe it's Dean's hands that aren't as cold anymore. “Down,” Timmy is saying, his voice small but decisive. “We should go down somewhere.”

Dean isn't sure. The only places that are remotely further down than the bunker is already are the dungeon, the shooting range, and the garage. They keep walking, and it takes Dean longer than it should to realize there are too many corridors, and doors, and hallways. They are walking, but they are walking in a labyrinth.

They turn a corner, walk past another corridor, and Dean is just about to lean down to Timmy and ask, but then he sees is. Just in the corners of his vision, but it freezes him instantly, a hand closing over his heart, jamming down his throat. A shadow of a thing, too tall, too thin. Walking down the corridor towards them, made of black smoke, a wide white grin splitting its face in two. His face. The thing that was him, is him. It's here.

He stops walking, whips his head around. Stares, but the corridor to his right is empty. Empty, and it's staring right back at him.

Timmy is tugging frantically at his hand, “Dean, don't look, we have to go!”

Dean lets Timmy drag him away. He's stumbling, can't breathe right. Only the kid's firm grip on his hand is keeping him going at all.

At one point, they're walking past the library. Dean knows, because there isn't a door, and he recognizes the stairs. There is a faint sound, like footsteps, a weight hitting a smooth surface, pages rustling. He slows down, torn between moving towards the sounds and running from them. Timmy is here with him, but he still feels so alone. He didn't even realize it until now. Didn't want to.

He's moving towards the stairs without even being aware of it, until the tug of Timmy's hand makes him stop and turn around. Timmy is shaking his head, “What are you doing? Don't leave me here, Dean!”

Dean freezes, shocked. Timmy's eyes are wide with fear. He crouches down, hugs the kid close. Timmy's arms come around him, clutching tight. He can barely feel them.

“Hey, hey, I'm not leaving you alone, buddy. But if – ”

Timmy interrupts him, like he knows what Dean was about to say. “There's no one here, Dean. It's just everyone who's already here.”

Dean smoothes a hand down the kid's back, frowns at the puzzling statement. “Okay,” he says, feeling lost. “Okay.” Timmy seems to calm a bit at that, draws away and takes Dean's hand again, leading him away from the stairs. They vanish from sight behind them.

The doors all look the same, but the numbers on them make no sense. But Dean can't figure it out, as soon as he walks past one, he can't remember what it said anymore. Like it was written in sand, and a wave washed it away. Sometimes there are sounds behind the doors, muffled voices, scratching that makes Dean's hair stand on end. Timmy doesn't react to it at all. But the noises in the walls seem to follow them, and again and again Dean feels compelled to turn his head and look behind them while they walk. Each time, Timmy tugs at his hand to make him look ahead again.

“You'll make them come closer. Don't look.”

Dean glances at the kid, confused, “Didn't you say there's no one here?”

Timmy doesn't answer, staring straight ahead. His fingers curl tighter around Dean's hand. “Can you tell me a story?”

Dean blinks, taken aback. “Uh, I dunno. What kind of story?”

Timmy draws in a breath, looks up at him and meets his eyes. “When you got rescued in Hell. What happened? How did it feel?”

Dean stares down at the kid, slowing his steps without noticing. It doesn't even seem strange how Timmy knows about it. But, “I don't really remember. And it's not a nice story, kiddo.”

Timmy tugs at his hand again, still holding his gaze. “But didn't you feel safe?”

Dean stares at him. He cannot answer.

>

They reach a crossroads.

One moment, there's just the labyrinth of hallways ahead, and then it's there. Dean wouldn't even have noticed if Timmy wouldn't have drawn him to a stop. He looks down at the kid, questioning. Timmy shrugs, “We can't walk that way. Don't you see it?”

Dean looks, but all the he sees is the corridor stretching ahead. He holds out a hand, and then flinches when he hits a solid surface. He flattens his palm against it, heart hammering in his throat. It's smooth and cool. Like a mirror.

But it doesn't reflect them. Just the way they came from.

He shudders, looks down at the kid again. “Okay. Where do you wanna go?”

Timmy is already tugging at his hand, trying to drag him towards the hallway to their left. It's shadowed and dark in there. A couple of stairs are visible, leading down, but then everything is swallowed up by blackness.

Dean hesitates, movements slowing before he comes to a complete stop, despite Timmy's increasingly insistent tugging. Shivers are racing up his arms at the mere thought of going in there. He'd forgotten the places his body were hurt, but now he feels them again, the sharp ache of his ribs, the pounding at the back of his head and behind his temples. The burning of his split lip and the twisting of bile in his empty guts.

“What are you looking at? I told you, we can't stay still!”

The kid drags him further towards the hallway and then runs down the stairs and disappears. His footsteps are loud and echoing, like stones pounding against the walls of the sky.

“Wait –” Dean lunges after him, but his hand reaches into nothing. He takes a couple of steps down into the impenetrable dark, his legs shaky with fear. And then, he suddenly runs into something solid. He stumbles, falls backwards and lands painfully on his side back out in the corridor.

Just as he raises his head, the darkness moves, and then moves out towards him. Or, a part of it does. Dean's breathing stutters, terror seizing his heart.

The part of the dark that walks out towards him is like a thin line of black, starting from the floor and almost hitting the ceiling. The open wound with jagged teeth. It's smiling at him, cruelly, _again_ , even though it doesn't even have a face yet.

It forms, fast, the dark stretching out. Turning into Dean himself. Black eyes, mouth stretched into a smirk like a hyena.

He chokes, on spit, or maybe blood, scrambles backwards. The thing that's him laughs, “Oh, where, where will you go?” It walks towards him, slowly, has all the time in the world because there is no time and the world is only this.

Dean doesn't stop trying to get away anyway, he just can't not try. Stumbles backwards on his hands and knees, too weakened to get up and run.

“Didn't you listen to yourself? Every room in here is yours.” It stops, smile stretching impossibly wider. “Every room in here is mine.”

>

Dean is frozen, staring at the thing that wears his face. He's backed off into the opposite corridor to the one Timmy wanted to take, the one the thing emerged from. But maybe Timmy went further down and is safe, because this thing didn't come from down there. It is Dean, and it's been here all the time.

The thing snickers, “Finally starting to accept who we are?”

Dean swallows, scrambles back further. Then becomes aware of how he's no longer dragging himself over a cold smooth floor but uneven stone and rough sand. The walls and the ceiling are still there, but now they're made of burned yellowish stone, and the air is hot and dusty, sand hitting his legs and thighs and piling up like tiny waves at his feet.

The thing is still smiling, slowly coming closer. It reaches out a hand, and grains fall through its fingers and rain down to the ground with a sound like half-forgotten whispering.

Dean can't back away any further, his limbs frozen and weighted down, his heart beating too fast for breath. The thing walks up to him and crouches down where he is kneeling in the sand. It takes his head in its hands and he tries to flinch away. Scrambles at the thing's wrists to pull its hands away but the grip is without mercy. The thing smiles, benevolent. Its breath is hotter and older than the baked air around them.

“After fasting forty days and forty nights, we are hungry. The tempter comes to us and says, 'If we are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.'”

The voice is soft, curling around Dean like it has a life of its own. The eyes are bottomless pits, and he wants to snarl, to refuse, but he cannot look away. Won't look away, not anymore. This is him, and it might hurt others if he runs. He won't run. He came here so it would be over.

“Then let it be over. Dean. Don't you want peace?”

Dean's breath hitches. His skin is awash with sick warmth where the thing is touching him. The pain in his head and in his limbs is slowly being pushed back and away. The pain of his memories is leaving with it, and he desperately stems himself against the tide, even though the agony of it slices through his head like claws. The thing is shaking its head at him in pity, the hands gripping tighter, digging into his bones. Dean gasps, black spots dancing in his vision.

“You _want_ to forget, Dean, I know it. We, know it. You want calm. No more screams. No more holding the ceiling on your shoulders.” And he can feel it, like the sand whispering over his skin, warm and soothing, a promise of shadows. Of giving over and letting go. Dean grits his teeth, fights for breath. Digs his fingers into the thing's wrists while it leans closer, crouching over him.

“Here on your knees. With your head in my hands.” The warmth is enveloping him. An ocean, and he wants nothing more than to fall forward into it. He feels so heavy. The thing is smiling gently, eyes glinting. It's all he can see. “All this I will give you. A kingdom of kingdoms. What is mine is yours. With our head in our hands.”

Dean's eyes are close to falling shut. He can feel his heartbeat slowing.

He pushes it past his lips, barely over a breath.

“No.”

The thing stills.

Dean forces his eyes open. His vision won't focus. He puts all the strength he has left in his voice, even though his throat feels parched, like he's been walking in the desert for days.

“You are just a part. Everyone is here. You are not,” his throat is blocked, his guts are rebelling. “You are not... everyone.”

A pause, and then the thing that is him but not all of him pushes him away, forcefully. His side slams against the stone floor painfully, sand blinding him. He groans, curls in on himself.

“Forty days and forty nights, Dean,” the retreating voice hisses. “There is time, and time is with _us_.”

Dean keeps his eyes closed, doesn't watch the thing go. He turns his head away from the sand, gasps for breath. He can't get up. He lies there, and listens to the howls of the wind, and drifts.

>

He hears Timmy ask again, “How did it feel?” He doesn't know. Maybe he did feel safe. He wants to feel safe again. Cas and Sam's worried faces flash through his mind. When he'd refused to be healed. Because it might have made that thing inside regain its strength along with him. Because he'd been so desperately afraid to lose his grip on it.

Dean should stay here. Say no again, and again. But he doesn't want to stay here. He is so alone. He doesn't wanna be alone.

Painfully, he rolls halfway on his back. Fingers scrambling weakly at the sand.

He and Sam might not be okay, but he wants to see if they will be. He and Cas might be – heat rises in his chest. He mostly tries not to think about what they _could_ be.

Dean wants to see them again. That thing – it will still be there when he wakes up. But he will be there, too. He will fight it to the last.

He pushes up with one elbow, gasping, his other arm wrapped around his aching ribs. A wave of dizzying pain washes over him, he has to close his eyes and breathe through it. How did it feel, Timmy asked. He doesn't know. The last he knows is flashes of blinding light, and then being yanked up and away, gone, gone, gone.

He reaches out a hand, doesn't even know for what.

And then warm fingers gently close over his, and a second later there's another hand cupping his cheek.

Dean blinks his eyes open against the light and the dust, voice catching in his throat.

“Cas?”

Cas is kneeling in front of him, blue eyes soft with worry and fondness.

“Hello, Dean.”

>

For a long moment, Dean can't speak. Then, “How did you find me?”

Cas is steadying him with a hand on his shoulder, helping him sit up. “It took a while. There were... _things_ , trying to keep me out. I had to be careful.” He grimaces, a dark expression on his face that nonetheless makes Dean smile a bit. Cas is one stubborn bastard.

Still, he doesn't ask, not yet. Doesn't ask if Cas means he had to be careful about not hurting Dean with intruding forcefully, or not getting hurt by Dean himself.

Dean gets one knee under himself, hisses when the movement pulls at his aching ribs. “I'm sorry,” Cas is saying, “I can't heal you in here. Or out there. It won't let me.”

Dean chuckles breathlessly, “Give me a hands up, I'll be fine.”

Cas gets him to his feet, keeps the hand on Dean's shoulder for a moment longer because he's swaying unsteadily. Cas is also still holding Dean's hand in his. And Dean is not pulling away from the touch. It's a bit embarrassing. But he just doesn't want to.

Cas is staring at him, and he feels his face heat, looks at his feet. Then at the sands around them. The way he came from and the labyrinth of corridors have gone. He feels himself shiver, his voice is a rasp in his throat, laced with fear. “Where are we, Cas?”

Cas sighs, turns his head to look in the direction Dean is looking.

“A desert so old its name has been forgotten.” He hesitates, eyes flickering back to Dean. “I... used to come here often. When I was in doubt.”

Dean stares back into his eyes. The weight of aeons, of kingdoms buried under sand. Things he might never understand. He asks, “Did – did it help?”

Cas huffs out an unexpected breath of laughter, corners of his mouth tugging up into a smile. “No. I didn't understand – not until I met someone who told me what matters are people, not stories written in the dust.”

Dean's breath catches, he can feel his face heat under Cas' steady gaze. He has to clear his throat, “Yeah, well. That guy, was he – was he right?”

There's a pause, and then Cas steps closer. “Yes,” he says, simply. “Yes, he was.” Another pause, and then Cas shifts, his voice rougher than before. “We – I was very scared for you, Dean.”

Dean draws in a shuddering breath, opens his mouth though he doesn't even know how to react to that. What to say, how to explain. But then he doesn't have to. Cas shakes his head, “I know you didn't mean to. I know you, I know you'd rather stay here than – ”

Cas breaks himself off, his fingers tightening around Dean's hand. He lifts his head again, eyes boring into Dean's, fierce and bright. The sand Dean can feel hitting his legs and his back with every lift of wind doesn't even touch Cas, he's like a beacon and a shadow. A blaze of fiery life in an ocean of ghosts.

“But you said No, Dean. You have saved yourself. And I will not leave you here!”

Cas jaw is set but quivering faintly, his eyes determined but wet, vulnerable. The wind picks up and Dean shivers. But he feels warmer, too. He swallows, breathes out, “Yeah, okay. Okay.” He feels lighter for it.

The tension instantly melts out of Cas, his shoulders sagging. Dean looks around uncertainly, “Do you know where to go?”

Cas shakes his head, “This is all one place and nowhere, Dean. You could walk endlessly.” He reaches out and cups his other hand around Dean's cheek again. Dean stills, surprised, his breath hitching. Cas pulls his head down gently, rests his forehead against Dean's and closes his eyes. “You know what happened, Dean. How did it feel?”

Cas is close, his soft breath hitting the side of Dean's mouth. How did it feel? Dean closes his eyes as well, the sounds of the wind and the desert quieting and falling away.

There was pain and confusion and anger. Loneliness, how it lasted forever – he flinches away from it, almost stumbles back. Cas' voice pulls him in again, “You're not alone anymore, Dean. You're not alone.” Dean grits his teeth, scrambles back. There was light, and fear, but for a moment, just a moment, he'd known he wasn't alone for the first time in centuries. How did it feel? He couldn't feel, not then, and yet he could, far too much. Raw, open, overwhelmed. His heart is racing, Cas' hand is holding tight. How did it feel?

The warmth of sunlight in a kitchen, soft sheets under his skin. Someone to hold him close. Laughter, and song. And he had gone with it.

He leans forward. And when Cas' hand tugs at his, pulling him upwards, he is the one who holds on tight.

>

Sensation is the first to come back, though slowly. He feels as though submerged in warm water, then becomes aware of a firm if soft surface under his back. He breathes, and there's the smell of freshly-washed cotton.

Warmth, against the side of his face, somewhere on his chest.

He breathes, then realizes someone else's breath is there, too. Dean blinks his eyes open, his vision hazy, only slowly focusing. There are shapes, dark and light. Blue. He blinks again, and it's Cas looking down at him, a soft smile on his face, his eyes red-rimmed but bright.

“Welcome back, Dean.”

Cas is sitting perched at the side of Dean's bed, one hand curled around Dean's cheek, the other holding Dean's hand and resting above Dean's heart on his chest. Dean feels heavy all over, stiff and cold, though his skin is tingling like warmth is slowly returning to it.

He takes a deeper breath, “Wha – ” It comes out as a croak, his throat is so dry. He has to cough, painfully, and Cas withdraws the hand from his face, picks up a glass of water from the nightstand. The lamp is on, casting the room in a warm glow. Cas slips a hand under his neck to elevate his head, holds the glass to his lips carefully. It would be embarrassing, but right now Dean is too thirsty to care.

The water helps clear his head, and by the time he sinks back into the pillow again it's all rushing through him, out of order. Benny who wasn't Benny, and what Dean was going to ask of him regardless. The note, him almost losing it in that fight, being trapped in a labyrinth of fear and guilt and things that are and aren't him –

Cas rests his hand over Dean's heart again. “You're here, Dean. You're here, I promise you that. And we're here.”

Dean takes a deep breath, forces his eyes open again. Looks around the room, worry rising to the surface. “Sam?”

Cas inclines his head, like he's listening. Or maybe looking through the walls. “He's fallen asleep in the library. I will go and get him as soon as he wakes up. Claire is with Jody Mills.”

Dean looks up at him, questioning. Cas must understand, he sighs, weariness and relief evident in the slump of his shoulders. “Four days. It took me four days to find you.” He pauses, eyes holding Dean's. “I had to be careful. For both our sakes.”

He doesn't say it, but Dean can hear the undercurrent of fear in his voice. He swallows, looks down at where his right arm is lying across his chest, his hand curled just beside Cas' hand. His sleeve is pushed back, the mark just visible above the crook of his elbow. The thing is still there. It's still a part of him. He was on his knees in front of it. He had tried to hide in his own head, and the thing had followed him. He couldn't outrun himself.

The thing is in his blood and in his head. But it's not all, not everything that's there.

Cas shifts on the bed, his hand brushing against Dean's.

“You're not alone, Dean. I am sorry you thought you were.”

He sounds brittle, regretful.

Dean reaches out and squeezes Cas' hand, once, not quite ready yet to hold it again. Cas lifts his head, his eyes sad but hopeful, too. Dean manages a shaky smile. If the dark things in the world have time, then so have they. Forty days he'd fallen down. And now he's gonna take his stand, with everything he is.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
> 
> 4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” [...] 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
> 
> Author's Note: The beginning of this fic had been sitting in my drafts for a long while. I wrote the part with Benny way before we even had spoilers for 10x19 The Werther Project. Supernatural did it way better than me, but it was still fun writing this. There can never be enough Benny ;)


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